this is not a music blog but

K(1) reminded me that Half-Handed Cloud was playing at Berry Church on Thursday night. We had seen him preform a few years (or more than a few years...) back at our college. I was deeply in love at the time but had had my heart trounced (thrashed, shit on, what-have-you). I'm sure this is an exaggeration but the night of that show is the first good night I can recall, post-heartbreak. I can remember how tired, just sapped of energy, I was; the way my mouth tasted from not really eating much and surviving on cigarettes for months; what I was wearing (oversized red-orange woolly sweater, borrowed from the very tall M(2)). I can remember how chaotic the music was, how fast and odd and accompanied by props. I hadn't really seen anything like it and I was so happy to be temporarily in the circle of this guy's creativity. Man, that was one sweet show, the kind where you just grin and grin and grin.

So, of course, this week's show did not quite measure up, but still, it was good music. Very communal, close, spazzy. He played some of the same songs he'd played that first night, years ago, and by association, i started thinking about love, something I forget is a real thing. Sitting there hearing that music, surrounded by old friends who I rarely see anymore, rocking out in the basement of my church to truly positive music... it was a very holistic experience, working on way to many levels. I was drunk with thoughts, none of which coherently made it out of me in any form. Thoughts about collaboration; vicarious metaphysical creativity, a massive unified creative conscience; how sometimes two people actually do fall in real love and are better for it; and on and on. I wanted to put my hands on everyone in the room... it was like Woodstock. For lack of a better way to describe my mindset, I will offer this rare excerpt from my notebook, written late, late that night:

By now, I am all alphabetic stitches and jumbles upon jumbles of songs in the making - I think only my Miraculous Jesus would be willing to add himself to this mess. By now, I breathe in and out b/c I know one day I'll get to stop. Heaven is like a dream only things make more sense and seem real (b/c probably the are).

After many failed attempts to upload video of the show, this picture is going to have to suffice. Maybe video later?